Survival Against All Odds: The Argentine 'Miracle' Baby?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the case of Luz Milagros Veron, a premature baby in Argentina who was pronounced dead and placed in a morgue freezer for over 10 hours before being found alive. Participants explore the implications of this event, including the biological and physiological factors that may have contributed to her survival, as well as the broader context of hypothermia and its effects on infants.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Debate/contested
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants express shock at the circumstances of the baby's initial treatment and question the ethics of such a situation.
  • There is speculation about whether a mature human could survive in a refrigerator for 10 hours, with some suggesting that children may have a different physiological response to hypothermia.
  • One participant notes that children have been documented to survive severe drops in body temperature, citing examples of children whose hearts restarted after prolonged periods of hypothermia.
  • Concerns are raised about the potential for long-term brain damage due to the baby's initial lack of oxygen and the transition from maternal to independent breathing.
  • A participant discusses a new procedure involving controlled hypothermia for infants with brain damage, suggesting that lowering body temperature can help protect brain tissue.
  • Another participant emphasizes that the cold temperature of the morgue may have played a crucial role in preserving the baby's life by slowing metabolism and reducing oxygen needs.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants do not reach a consensus on the implications of the baby's survival or the broader physiological principles at play. Multiple competing views and hypotheses are presented regarding the effects of hypothermia and the survival of premature infants.

Contextual Notes

Participants acknowledge various assumptions about the physiological responses of infants to hypothermia, the definitions of survival in extreme conditions, and the potential for long-term effects on health. There is also uncertainty regarding the specific circumstances of the baby's condition at the time of her discovery.

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The baby was put in a morgue freezer for 10 hours!?

She was a tiny thing: 1 pound 12 ounces, cold as a frozen bottle and left for dead. But she would survive.
One-week-old Luz Milagros Veron is Argentina's miracle baby. Pronounced dead after her premature birth, the baby withstood more than 10 hours in a morgue refrigerator before being found alive.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/04/11/world/americas/argentina-baby-survivor/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
 
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Wow!.
 
Sounds to me like there's nothing to debunk here; but what a distrubing way to come into the world- in a small wooden coffin in a freezer! :frown:
 
Mech_Engineer said:
Sounds to me like there's nothing to debunk here; but what a distrubing way to come into the world- in a small wooden coffin in a freezer! :frown:

Could a naked mature human survive in a fridge for 10 hours?
 
However, that baby later died.
Turns out it can't..:-(
 
Chrildren are able to survive more severe drops in body temperature for reasons I'm not clear on. There seem to be several examples of children's hearts restarting multiple hours after stopping while in severe hypothermic states (child falls into frozen lake, child wanders off in snow storm, etc.) I'm not saying it's common or that there's a 100% survival rate, but it does happen.

The wooden coffin may have also been able to supply some insulating effect in the fridge if the child's metabolism was putting out some minimal amount of heat.
 
surajt88 said:
Turns out it can't..:-(

They were citing another case in that portion of the news article. Still, a premature baby at 1.something pounds has a pretty small chance of survival... more due to infection risk though.
 
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Some extreme examples from the NIH:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17096105][Severe[/PLAIN] accidental hypothermia with cardiac arrest and extracorporeal rewarming. A case report of a 2-year-old child].

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18409118][Case[/PLAIN] report: severe hypothermia in a newborn infant - challenges in preclinical emergency medicine].

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17690748][Accidental[/PLAIN] deep hypothermia with cardiac arrest. Prompt complete recovery after rewarming by extracorporeal circulation. Case report.]


There's a funny conclusion in the 30-yr old's case too (emphasis added):
NIH Case Study said:
CONCLUSION: This case demonstrates the excellent prognosis of a young victim in the case of deep accidental hypothermia with cardiac arrest, provided that deep hypothermia precedes the cardiac arrest and rewarming by extracorporeal circulation is immediately applied. Simultaneous ethyl alcohol intoxication can be considered a protective factor improving the patient's outcome. Complete recovery was achieved within 24 hours after the accident.
 
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My thoughts:

Refrigerators are always above freezing. The point is to only keep the temperature low enough that bacteria become dormant and don't multiply. A fridge shouldn't cause tissue damage.

Newborns often don't spontaneously breathe for a while. Their oxygen has always come from blood shared with the mother. The transition from that to breathing, to taking in their own oxygen, is probably longer than people think, and is probably dependent on how much muscle movement the baby initiates itself. A three month premature baby may not move much at all in the womb, and it's oxygen requirements would be pretty much limited to keeping it's heart beating.

Putting the baby in the fridge probably greatly reduced its immediate need for oxygen without being cold enough to kill it.

Still, I wonder if there won't be long term brain damage. I guess that would depend on whether it was actually breathing all along, just too slowly to be seen.
 
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A new or relatively new procedure for babies born with possible ( possible is my term as the requirements for the treatment would have to be accessed and determined by the team of doctors ) damage to brain tissue by lowering the infants body temperature to 33 C, or by using a cap on the infants head to lower only the brain tissue temperature. Subsequently, the metabolism of the brain is lowered and the damaged cells are given more time to self-repair without accumulated side effects of glucose, radicals, calcium etc on brain and nerve tissue.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothermia_therapy_for_neonatal_encephalopathy

A human brain if deprived of oxygen for a time frame of 10 seconds or less will result in the subject loosing consciousness. Deprived of oxygen for something for less than 3 minutes, the brain will begin to suffer damage and if sustained will be unrepairable. Hypothermia treatment be it either induced clincally or accidentally will extend the 3 minute period. Infants and small children can survive an accidental lowering of body temperature mainly because of lower body mass with more rapid, complete and even cooling than that in an adult - ie the core and blood temperature.

While all drowning victims in frigid waters do not survive, it is apparent that due to the water in the lungs oxygen intake is nil. Temperature of the body would have to greatly reduced so as to slow metabolism to a value compatable with minimal available oxygen.

Since the baby in question would have to have been declaired dead with no apparent heart beat or breathing function immediately after birth, the cold temperature of the morgue probably saved her/his life, and the time spent at the colder temperature allowed some of the body functions to climatize to being out of the womb.